September 1997
NEWS & VIEWS FROM THE WHEAT AND BARLEY GROWERS
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Prairie Grains is the
official publication of
the Minnesota
Association of
Wheat Growers,
North Dakota Grain
Growers Association,
South Dakota Wheat,
Inc., and the
Minnesota Barley
Growers Association.
Jerry Kruger, a Warren, MN grower who has served the Minnesota wheat industry with distinction for many years, said after the 1996 growing season: "Scab is like a thief that robs during the night, and I've been robbed four times."
Jerry's been robbed again, for the fifth straight year. My own wheat crop with a 60-bushel-yield potential was swindled again by scab. That (insert your choice of swear words here) fungus robbed a lot of wheat and barley growers again this year, up and down the Red River Valley and into North Dakota's durum triangle.
Perhaps you've heard of Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs: Maslow was a psychologist who 50 years ago came up with a model to explain and rank the needs that direct human behavior. Maslow determined that our most basic need is
- Physiological (food, water, oxygen) followed by
- Safety and security (shelter, good health)
- Love and belonging (friends and family);
- Esteem (dignity, recognition, and self-confidence)
- Cognitive (knowledge)
- Aesthetic (beauty and order)
- Self-actualization (to realize our potential) and
- Transcendence (to help others realize their potential).
Humans move up and down the hierarchy as their needs are met. It makes sense; you're not going to care much about anything if you've starved or thirsted for three or four days, and it would be difficult to concentrate on your job if you're sick or your house burned down.
Maslow's hierarchy of needs theory may be applied to wheat production. We as wheat growers and as an association that represents wheat growers deal with many issues that affect our profitability, from taxes, state and federal regulations and CRP to markets, taxes, value-added ag and Canadian wheat imports.
But when you don't get a wheat crop, all these issues don't matter a lick.
Juan Pedraza in an Aug. 1, 1994 Agweek editorial addressed the issue similarly:
"We're spending 100 times the money, time and effort to fight Canadian imports and land corn processing plants than we are to address a problem with far deeper consequences. At the same time, we're stripping our plant breeding programs of funding and cutting sharply into related agricultural research.
"It doesn't add up. No, scab is not a sexy cause. There's no easy target to shoot, no quick fix, no facile political rhetoric to stir up the masses, nothing to organize TV-oriented protests for. But long term, getting a handle on this invader will benefit American grain producers a lot more than trade sanctions against fellow Prairie farmers.
"It'll take some political courage. But we want to hear from Sens. Byron Dorgan, Kent Conrad, and Max Baucus. Let them make as much noise about scab as they are about Canada. Let them suggest that the right thing to do is to fund long-term agricultural research, not slash the very efforts that would help us keep competing in the world markets with high-quality, scab-free grain. If we heard this from the Hill, we might be doing something other than praying for another drought to kill the scab."
Solving this disease has been priority number one for the Minnesota Association of Wheat Growers and the Minnesota Wheat Council since 1993. I know that the Council has dedicated much of producers' wheat checkoff funding to research programs. I know that the MAWG has been successful in obtaining a funding commitment of almost $3 million by the state of Minnesota over the last few legislative sessions for scab research. And, we have made inroads over the past year in making scab a priority at the national level.
However, more can be done to make scab a front-line national issue. Federal lawmakers must latch on to the scab issue with the same fervor as that of managing the effects of last spring's flooding, and with the same persistence as the Canadian grain issue.
The disease should be addressed with the same resources the federal government put into Karnal bunt last year. It deserves every bit of high-level USDA attention as U.S. Trade Representative Barshefsky's personal meeting with N.D. farmers last winter in Minot about Canadian wheat imports, or USDA Secretary Glickman's special trip to Washington state this summer, to smooth over that state's complaint about the low re-enrollment of its CRP land. Surely, those visits pertain to important, pertinent issues. But with scab, we are talking about a serious threat to the wheat industry. To Minnesota wheat and barley growers, scab is the issue. It's our top priority; our biggest threat. How can any business sustain a half of a decade of losses and expect to remain viable?
Mr. Glickman, USDA-Ag Research Service officials, and House and Senate Appropriators, the MAWG hereby extends to you the kind invitation to tromp through Minnesota wheat and barley fields, socked with Fusarium graminearum now for the fifth year running.n
Tim Dufault, Crookston, MN, MAWG President
USW head should build broader exports, coalitions
U.S. Wheat Associates, the U.S. wheat industry's export market development organization that is funded in part by the wheat checkoff in Minnesota, the Dakotas, and 15 other wheat-producing states, has a new president in Alan Tracy. He formerly was a high-level trade official with USDA and served most recently as Agriculture Secretary of Wisconsin. The Minnesota Wheat Research and Promotion Council extended the following message to Mr. Tracy shortly after he assumed his duties with USW:
"The MWRPC is excited about the prospects of global market promotion of U.S. wheat under your new leadership of U.S. Wheat Associates. We look forward to working with you as USW moves forward to pursue export opportunities on behalf of U.S. wheat producers.
We urge that this objective, along with other elements of the USW Long Range Plan, be pursued swiftly and aggressively, especially in light of current wheat market conditions in the short term, and the completion of the market transition period in the long term. The goal of the U.S. wheat industry should be to carry forth a plan to grow wheat exports around the world, if not double our export business within a decade.
Doubling exports within a decade is a realistic objective, even without export subsidies. Although the U.S. exported 985 million bushels in the last marketing year, the U.S. exported close to 1.6 billion bushels of wheat in 1987. And U.S. wheat export prospects into the next decade look promising in light of a growing world population, freer trade, more privatized wheat buying among wheat-importing countries, increasing global prosperity, and increasing wheat consumption.
Further, we urge you to strive for a stronger partnership with wheat states, and greater cooperation with other segments of our wheat industry, as well as commodity and agricultural organizations and sectors in the U.S. and abroad. Indeed, building coalitions will be important to building new markets in the new millennium."n
Cliff Keller, Fergus Falls, MN, Minnesota Wheat Council Chair
HRS tour overplays yield, understates quality
The North Dakota Grain Growers have long been opposed to facilitating yield estimates from the Wheat Quality Council's annual pre-harvest spring wheat tour in North Dakota. To better understand the motives and the mission of the Tour, I joined the event for its final day and a half in Devils Lake and Fargo this growing season.
In my opinion (bear in mind that these are personal rantings and not an official policy stance of the NDGGA) the goal of the Tour is clear: it is to estimate the size, not necessarily the quality, of the HRS crop.
Throughout the three-day tour that travels across North Dakota, part of South Dakota and Minnesota, the focus is on quantity of wheat or durum in randomly selected fields. The formula that is used to calculate the yields completely overlooks quality considerations. The formula includes a count of the number of heads in a row, the number of spikelets in the head, the number of kernels per spikelet and the row spacing.
If the sampled field had evidence of scab infestation, the estimated yield was reduced by subtracting the percentage incidence and extent of visibly affected spikelets. The likelihood that scab will also reduce the test weight, kernel size and any vomitoxin problems was not factored in; only scab's impact on the yield was addressed.
The fifteen-minute training session for tour participants does not explain how to calculate quality potential of the grain. What is the anticipated test weight? Protein levels? Shrunken kernels? None of these factors were mentioned during the Wheat "Quality" Council tour.
It is frustrating to witness fields with 50% incidence of scab; frustrating because you feel for the farmer who owns the field and it is frustrating because some reporter who just learned how to guess yields suggests that loss due to scab is at only 12% or 15%. Other quality factors must be considered when grain is assessed, particularly in the case of durum, which, if it doesn't make milling quality, is essentially worthless, regardless of what the spikelet count is.
Proponents of the tour will argue that the big grain companies will have crop scouts and internal yield estimates even without this event, so the focus here is on quality. They say that it is important for the industry to have a standard public yield estimate so everyone can benefit. However, we have seen evidence year after year of the market-moving potential of the tour's yield estimates.
Results of the tour are coveted and exclaimed far and wide. I rode with a reporter from a national wire service during the final day of the tour. He explained that he had already written his story about the tour the evening before and had e-mailed it to his editor, leaving blank spaces where the numbers could be multiplied times the USDA acreage estimate.
As the final yield estimates results were being announced, this journalist simultaneously reported the numbers to his editor via cellular phone. He boasted to me that the story would be "on the wire" within two minutes, "hopefully before the competition." There were at least two national wire service reporters, some foreign correspondents and several local reporters following the tour. I think that this highlights the overblown attention that is focused on this supposed wheat quality tour. It is clear that speculators wait for the numbers and markets move as a result of them.
The tour estimated an average HRS yield of 31.3 bushels and an estimated durum yield of 27.7. Ironically, most of the participants that I visited with personally thought that these numbers were at least five bushels too high. I agree, the formula only measures the yield potential and not the yield likelihood. The incidence of scab and the severe weed pressure was disturbing in most of the fields visited.
Rookies and experts alike agreed that the yield numbers presented could only represent the size potential of the crop, not projected yield and that yield numbers could be expected to dwindle, not improve. Unfortunately the formula only evaluates yield with a discount for estimated incidence and extent of scab only with respect to their yield reducing potential, not the quality- and test-weight reducing potential.
Tour sponsors claim a successful estimating trend; that historically the tour estimate is within one and a half bushels of USDA's numbers. My review of the previous five-year WQC tour estimates and the North Dakota Ag Statistics final yield numbers, however, indicate that the tour consistently overestimated - 5.9 bushels on average! 1992 tour estimate was 47; actual was 42. 1993 tour estimate was 41.3; actual was 31. 1994 tour estimate was 37; actual 31.5. 1995 tour estimate was 32.2; actual yield was 27. And in 1996 the tour participants guessed a 36.4 bushel yield, while North Dakota realized an actual yield of 33 bushels. Durum estimates are no better; five-year average for the tour estimate is 35.1, four bushels higher than the 31.1 actual yield.
So why does the tour receive so much attention? No one seems to know. The estimates are released as just that - estimates, but nevertheless to many farmers, the bottom line on the tour, right or wrong, is that they see it as a grain-trade mechanism to push the price down.
I am not saying that the tour should be discontinued, but certainly reevaluated. I agree that it offers a good opportunity for interaction amongst farmers and various members of the industry. However, it should be restructured, certainly with a stronger emphasis on quality. I think that the tour could benefit all participants in the production of wheat foods, if the focus were more educational rather than an appraisal. The mission should be to meet with farmers to discuss maintaining quality factors in HRS and durum. When wheat millers, bakers, buyers and farmers are all in the same field, they could use the opportunity to visit and better understand each other's needs.
Perhaps a quality measurement can be developed and adopted by the Wheat Quality Council for use on this tour. A quality guide that would help farmers know what they have and millers and bakers know what to expect. I would be pleased to meet with the tour leaders at any time to discuss possible improvements to the format and focus of the tour.n
Lance Gaebe, Executive Director, North Dakota Grain Growers Assn.
NDGGA HOLDS 1ST ANNUAL WHEAT & BARLEY DAY
A good crowd turned out for the North Dakota Grain Growers Association's 1st Annual Wheat & Barley Day, held this past summer in Carrington, ND. There was plenty on the agenda: tours and mini-seminars on such topics as varietal development, the markets, precision farming, best management practices and post-harvest management; a golf tournament, and entertainment. ND Lt. Gov. Rosemarie Myrdal and Phil McLain, president of the National Association of Wheat Growers (speaking at podium in the photo) keynoted a pasta luncheon.
Economics may force further EU ag reforms
While it is always difficult to predict which way European ag policy winds will be moving at any given moment, there are strong economic factors that suggest that some significant reforms to the agriculture sector will become necessary in the next two years.
First, the costs of providing relief to the livestock sector from the mad-cow disease-related losses are putting additional strain on the European Union (EU) agriculture budget. In addition, the heavy costs incurred in the effort to integrate eastern German states with the west, particularly in agriculture, is a sobering lesson for those planning for the eastward expansion of the EU. The upcoming (1999) resumption of agricultural trade negotiations under the World Trade Organization (the successor to GATT) is also a crucial factor in this process.
Obviously, European farm organizations are putting tremendous pressure on European leaders to block wholesale changes to the system. Under the unwieldy union, which seems more comparable to the "Articles of Confederation" under which the first government of the United States operated until 1787, each of the nation-states of the European Union has the ability to derail any major policy change that is deemed to be contrary to "national interest." Since all politics are local, this system puts tremendous power in the hands of the agricultural organizations that retain powerful cultural and political force in such European nations as France and Germany.
At present, the EU agricultural negotiator (Guy Legras) is pushing a plan that may decouple EU agricultural subsidies from production (details of the plan are lacking at this time). The plan appears designed to reduce government stocks and let EU domestic grain prices rise to world market prices, thus eliminating the need for export subsidies to make EU grain competitive.
Further, the EU agricultural branch has pushed for these reforms to be approved ahead of the 1999 renewal of agricultural negotiations at the WTO. European agricultural organizations have, naturally, risen in opposition to both the reform and the timing, arguing that the EU should not 'give away' reforms at this stage but should wait until the WTO negotiations before making significant changes.
US trade officials should remember that the Uruguay Round negotiations were hamstrung in the final phases when the EU approved its CAP reform and then told negotiators that this was all that the EU would offer in the way of new reforms (other than the limited negotiations culminating in the Blair House agreement on oilseeds and grain setasides). As a result, efforts to further reduce the level of export subsidization were stymied.
The current atmosphere in Europe could lend itself to a repeat of the Uruguay Round strategy, particularly since Legras, who negotiated the Blair House and Uruguay Round accords, remains at the helm of the EU agricultural apparatus. Hopefully, US negotiators will be better prepared to block any attempt by EU officials to present another CAP reform plan as a final WTO package.
Another interesting item being discussed in Brussels should be of particular interest to US grain producers. EU Ag Commissioner Fischler's reform package seems to envision a mechanism to shift export subsidy funds into the direct payment scheme for producers. Given the annual attacks on the EEP spending allocation in the US, moving the EEP baseline well below the Uruguay Round limits, and the reluctance of the current Administration to make the program operational for bulk commodities, perhaps US producers should begin looking for a similar mechanism to preserve those funds for the producers traditionally served by the program.n
Jack Pettus, Washington D.C., Legislative representative
National Barley Growers Assn.
A plan to escape old man winter: Try San Diego Jan. 14-17
It seems like he just left, but Old Man Winter will soon unpack his bags again in the Northern Plains. And if you are like me, you are already making plans to pack your bags to get away from him awhile next winter! May I suggest going to the National Association of Wheat Growers Convention, at the Town and Country Hotel in San Diego, California, Jan. 14 - 17, 1998.
You will be able to measure your deci-sion in degrees, say a 70-degrees-or-more difference! You will not only be able to bask in the warmth of sunny southern California, but also in the warmth of good fellowship with wheat producers from around the world.
There will be lively discussions on how producers can try to shape their future with small group sessions on subjects from value-added ag and marketing to conser-vation and farm policy. Or how about at-tending a workshop on how to improve your farm's productivity? There will be speakers from across the nation talking on fertility, no-till, GPS, and crop rotations. The larger sessions will include an "In-ternational Boyers Forum" moderated by radio personality Ken Root of Agri Talk and just maybe we will hear from the U.S. Secretary of Agriculture.
New to the NAWG convention this year will be the Wheat Industry Resource Committee symposium. This symposium will feature research papers from public as well as private researchers. These sessions will run parallel throughout the convention and I hope you will find time to take in some of them and offer a producer's perspective.
The convention will "kick off" with a reception and dinner for the first 500 early registrants sponsored by BASF on Wednesday, Jan. 14. (So register early!) Then throughout the convention at the large trade show there will be plenty of good food, not to mention fun and games, all with a wheat theme. It all concludes on Saturday, Jan. 17, with time to explore San Diego or to take an optional tour of southern California's unique agriculture, capped off that night with a closing banquet, an event you will not want to miss!
You can also sign up for an optional tour to the Imperial Valley of California and spend one night in Mexico. Leaving from the Town and Country Hotel Monday morning Jan. 12, you will have a chance to see the agriculture of the deserts in the Imperial Valley in both California and Mexico, and spend the night in the Mexican town of Mexicali. Returning Tuesday, Jan. 13, this optional tour is limited to 120 people, so sign up now! If you have even more time, San Diego has a lot to offer such as Sea World, the San Diego Zoo, day tours to Tijuana, Mexico and the list goes on and on.
The choice is yours, to what "degree" of a vacation you want to take! Call Annie at the NAWG office (202-547-7800) for more information, or your state association office, which can send you information. I'll be seeing you in San Diego!
Tom Young, Onida, SD, SD Wheat, Inc. President